How Not To Steal The Earth
by JealousOfTheMoon
Summary: In which the Doctor is confronted with hot tubs, mood swings, and the fact that his TARDIS is indeed bigger on the inside. Oh, and by the way, he's brilliant. One way the S4 Finale might have gone. Davros and the Daleks have nothing on this! -10th-


Disclaimer: _I _am _a fan of Doctor Who. Series 4 was quite possibly my favorite of the lot. I neither intend to bash nor steal anything belonging to BBC & the show; this is just me having a bit of fun. Here be much AU/OOCness and exaggerated canonicity. It is a parody, after all, and my first Whofic (go figure). I know I'm no expert on Whodom, but lighten up, bear with me and enjoy anyway! _

Explanation: _the idea struck me immediately after watching Turn Left, so two-thirds of this was written before I'd actually seen the Series 4 finale. (All I knew was what was in the trailer.) It was a mock-prediction of how things could possibly go; I finished it after watching the finale, obviously, but it's still totally not canon. _

Warning: _This is convoluted and probably not even funny anymore. But I wrote it, so what can you do? It didn't end the way I planned, but I'm getting used to that. Oh, and it's insanely long—a little more than twelve pages on Microsoft Word—so it's probably the longest single-chapter story I've ever written._

Dedicated: _to those of us who already know that it's bigger on the inside, including the fantastic, brilliant, good ol' Doctor. ("Really? Hadn't noticed!") _

**How Not To Steal The Earth **_–by JotM_

The Doctor and Donna stared, one horrified, the other confused, at the sinister, eerie, and in other words _downright creepy_ red interior of the TARDIS.

Donna may not have been an expert like The Doctor, but she'd seen enough on telly and at the pictures to know that red is typically associated with sinister/dark people and plots. A memory of the rabid Ood's red eyes hit her—a first-hand encounter with red that hadn't exactly been "safe." Thus she deduced that a red TARDIS wasn't a good thing.

For some reason, the nameless blonde's words came back unbidden to her mind: _It's coming, Donna…the darkness…nothing can stop it._

But there wasn't time to ponder the connection between "bad wolf," unstoppable darkness, the anonymous blonde, and a blushing Time machine. The lights in the TARDIS began flickering, alternating between deep red and the palest shade of bright pink. There was a clamoring noise, somewhat akin to two or three cheesy TV themes all jumbled together without thought or harmony. Then it came: a tremendous _POP_.

"What—?!" The Doctor gasped, spinning this way and that with his mouth hanging open in typical fashion. The ground under the police box shook with a solitary (but very effective) jolt, effectively tumbling the shell-shocked time travelers to the ground.

"What." The Time Lord intoned dramatically, but everything was still. No dust, no prow of doomed ships, not even a life preserver in sight—just the empty TARDIS, with the red light slowly fading.

Then the doors to the TARDIS swung open, and three people stumbled in just before the doors slammed shut again.

"Wow!" they chorused. "It's bigger on the inside!"

The Doctor pulled himself to his feet slowly. His ridiculous hair was standing up even taller than it usually did (if that's possible) and he had the sort of expression on his face that I expect one would see at a Gallifreyan execution—on the executioner's face.

"Can you please go back where you came from and let Russell Davies or whoever's in control of this know that I am seriously _fed up_ with that line?" He didn't really know who Russell Davies was, but it made sense to him all the same. He was used to making sense out of things he didn't understand. "And in the meantime, how did you get into _my_ TARDIS without a key?"

The girl—for there were two boys and a girl—held up a small silver object. "Sonic lipstick," she said smugly, a grin spreading over her face from underneath frizzy, dark hair. "That is…I think."

"But that's impossible—you can't use a sonic device to—" Just then, there was a bang as if someone had run into the TARDIS, and then a cry of "Aha!" followed by a series of smaller bangs—as if someone were banging on the TARDIS door. This was, in fact, what was happening.

"DOCTOR, OPEN THIS DOOR AT ONCE OR SO HELP ME I'LL—!!"

The Doctor rushed to the door and flung it open. "Sarah Jane," he said in an attempt to be placating and suave at the same time. (It didn't really work.) A cheesy grin flashed across his features, and if it was somewhat nervous that is easily explicable. "Fancy meeting you agai—"

"Shut it, Doctor," she griped. "Now where are those wretched kids?!"

Three guilty faces appeared from behind the TARDIS controls. The livid freelance-journalist whirled on the youngsters. Her expression was tight and her eyes were steely. The three children visibly quailed.

"Sonic device. Now."

The innocent-looking lipstick tube was handed over without further delay.

"Now," Sarah Jane said, her face fading from stressed to cheery once more. "What's going on? I was chasing these three…urchins…." She paused to glare at aforesaid urchins, who in return gave somewhat faltering grins. "…and the next thing I knew, I was in front of the TARDIS. Wow!" she chirped. "It's bigger on the inside than I remembered!" The Doctor grimaced but chose to say nothing.

"Speaking of urchins," the Doctor began, "these three would be…?"

"I'm Luke," the tall, pale-skinned boy began. "I'm baby-faced, brilliant, and gullible!" He grinned. "And I don't have a bellybutton."

Nobody blinked at this somewhat unconventional introduction—nobody, that is, besides the Doctor and Donna. "Very…to the point…." The Doctor muttered, half-wanting to throw the boy outside to the wolves (Ha. Ha. Bad Wolf. Get it? Ha. Ha.) and half-wanting to further investigate the source (or rather, lack thereof) of the nonexistent bellybutton. Before he could settle on one of the two, one of the other children spoke up.

"I'm Maria," the frizzy-haired girl laughed. "I'm horribly inconsistent with my own character." Suddenly, her expression darkened. "I _hate_ you!" she exclaimed vehemently.

"Nothing personal," Sarah Jane whispered to the dumbfounded Doctor, "she just…does that. You get used to it."

"Er, I see…likewise, I'm sure," the Doctor said, wondering how long it would be until he was forced to use his sonic device to shut down his own ears. He wondered if he could actually do that…

"Hey!" a young lad (who bore a strange resemblance to Micky Smith in both brains and looks) piped up. "Don't forget me. I'm Clyde, the brains and looks behind this whole operation. But don't take my word for it—I'm shallow and have a penchant for big, evil computers." Okay…so he was a little less insecure than Micky. And a bit more of ladies' man… "Who is _that_ lovely young lady?" he winked at the wall to the Doctor's right—only now Martha Jones was standing in front of said wall. She scowled at the (very lame) attempt at a pick-up line.

"Twice your age—and already taken," the dark-skinned former companion retorted smoothly, waving a diamond-solitaire-clad left hand in Clyde's face with a menacingly triumphant expression. The younger boy's face fell. "Hello, Doctor," Martha continued somewhat more cheerfully.

"Er…" the Doctor raised an eyebrow. "How'd you get here?"

"Dunno," Martha shrugged. "Closed my eyes, opened them again, and I was here. So. What's going on?"

"It's the darkness," a somber wisp of a voice intoned from the shadows. "The never-ending darkness—coming from across the stars—and I was called from another world because it's coming and _nothing_ can stop it."

"Yeah, you've said that bit already," Donna piped up.

"The stars are going to go out, you're all going to die…" The blond woman continued her morbid droning. The Doctor stared helplessly.

"But you're…you're trapped on a parallel universe!" he squawked, and the morbid blonde's expression darkened, looking momentarily alive and temporarily exchanging pessimism for rage.

"But I'm not exactly stupid, am I? Hmm?" Rose bit out. "Or how else would I know about Miss Cute-Blond-Stewardess? Was that what you were going to say to me at Bad Wolf Bay? _'Since it's my last chance to say it, Rose Tyler—I'm off to go find some other blonde to snog!'?" _

The Doctor hemmed and hawed and looked possibly more uncomfortable than ever before. "We were all going to die—it was tradition!"

"Tradition. HA!" Rose spat. "I'll give you tradition!" Rose smacked him across the face—with her hand, that is. Then she turned away and went back to her morbid droning about the end of the world. "Death…darkness…now we're in for it…"

"Ow! She hits like her mother," The Doctor complained under his breath, earning a whack to the arm from an unknown person behind him. A very familiar whack…

"Speak of the devil…" a falsely sweet voice sounded from right behind his ear. "What've you been doin' to make my daughter hit you, eh?"

"Jackie! Er…how are you?" the Time Lord gave the woman a half-hearted hug. He did like her. He did. (…right…) He just…had a really bad headache. "And Ricky!"

"Micky." The younger man didn't look much offended, more as if he had just been on the receiving end of a long and familiar joke between two good friends than as if his name had just been forgotten. "Good to see you, Doctor."

"Well." The Doctor looked around the TARDIS interior. "All we need now is for K9 and Captain Jack Harkness to show up, and we'd just have a lovely party, wouldn't we?"

"Oh—you can count K9 out," Sarah Jane raised her hand. "Silly bit of tin rubbish insisted on staying behind and patching up a black hole that's not even threatening the earth now the earth's been stolen. I think that new job he got done has gone to his head—he keeps running off and "fixing" random things, as if he's Superdog or something. Bah." She shook her head.

"Okay, so scratch K9, but where's—wait, what do you mean, _earth's been stolen?!_"

The door was flung open again, and three more figures stumbled into the TARDIS.

"Wow!" two of them chorused. "It's bigger on the inside!"

"Yea-hup," the Doctor said resignedly. "Original fellow, Russ is."

Donna gave him a strange look. "Who's Russ?"

"Never mind." (This was the Doctor's way of sidestepping the fact that he himself didn't really know.)

"Doctor, good to see you again!" Captain Jack intoned. "May I introduce Gwen and Ianto, my Torchwood counterparts?"

Gwen and Ianto both gave rather insipid smiles and faded into the background, where they continued to do things of little use and provide unnecessary lines and screams at what the writer deems convenient times (i.e., can think of nothing better to say).

"Oy!" Jackie yipped suddenly, staring at Jack. "I know 'im—'e's the toothpaste commercial guy in our world!"

"What?!" Captain Jack looked extremely offended. "Toothpaste commercials! I would never!"

"Well, in a parallel world apparently you do," Micky savored having this moment over the cheesy captain. "But don't worry, you've been moving up to more noble and heroic pursuits—I heard you're going from toothpaste to whitening strips next month." He laughed and pounded the faux-captain on the shoulder. "You may be into cologne by this time next year!"

Jack Harkness groaned and fell strangely silent. Anyone who knew the man understood that this was his way of displaying embarrassment.

"Excuse me," Sarah Jane ventured, "would anyone mind telling me who these three are? I have some vague idea of them—" she indicated the other companions and friends—"but I do not know this … captain… fellow. What are you doing here?"

Captain Jack cleared his throat and seemed to snap out of his embarrassed silence. His chest gradually swelled with air (read: pride) as he began: "We're with Torchwood, ma'am—Torchwood. That's outside the government, past the police, above the United Nations…"

"I see—" Sarah cut in, but Jack continued:

"…Spitting in the face of the United States, trampling all over UNIT, laughing at the Shadow Proclamation…"

Sarah Jane coughed. "I quite get the picture."

Captain Jack turned a light shade of red. "He gets carried away sometimes," Gwen put in helpfully, before fading into the background again.

"Darkness!" Rose shrieked suddenly, cocking her gun and aiming it rather wildly at her former-fellow time traveler. It was a massive gun, the Doctor realized, but somehow he hadn't noticed her holding it before. "Now _you're_ in for it," she said.

"Eh…heh heh…Rose, could you stop pointing the gun at me?" The Doctor sounded more annoyed than afraid. A burst of laughter broke out from somewhere on his right… and then abruptly stopped.

"I _hate_ you!" Maria said, and then began laughing again.

Micky looked Clyde (who was now asleep and drooling on the TARDIS interior) over, sniffed a little, and said: "Tin dog."

Martha grew bored and called Tom.

Sarah Jane was busy teasing Gwen and Ianto by breaking and repairing various gadgets the duo carried with her sonic device. She pretended to be fixing her lipstick whenever they looked around suspiciously, and the two let out various shrieks and yells of "what was _that?!_" and sighs of relief. That was, after all, their job in this episode. This would be delved into more fully, except it would grow tedious very quickly—as quickly as this entire paragraph on the subject, only three times as long.

Jackie chose that moment to reopen the "why did Rose slap you?!" topic, and the Doctor's headache increased to maximum strength.

"SHUT UP!" he yelled. Everyone was quiet…except for Martha.

"Yeah, I'm with The Doctor and—_no, _I don't still love him—you're not supposed to remember that—" She realized no one else was talking and gave a deer-in-the-headlights stare, snapping her phone shut. "Er… Sorry." She backed against the wall in an attempt to blend in with some of the lights. Apparently she was still a wee bit sensitive about her crush. The Doctor ignored her (typically oblivious) and started his rant.

"Alright, now what on earth is going on here? Who set up this meeting? Why doesn't _he"—_gesturing wildly at Luke—"have a bellybutton? And Sarah Jane, what did you mean, _the earth's been stolen?_ What's all this about?"

There was a long silence, broken only by Maria's (overused) proclamation of "I hate _all_ of you!"

The Doctor looked at Sarah Jane.

Sarah Jane looked at Rose.

Rose turned both gun and gaze towards Martha.

Martha shifted the focus to Captain Jack.

Captain Jack turned to Jackie, who quickly spun 'round to Micky.

Micky brought it back to Sarah Jane, who muttered something about "whatever happened to us Smiths have to stick together?"

(Nobody bothered much with Clyde, Maria, Luke, Ianto, or Gwen. They're really not important much to the plot.)

"Alright, fine," Sarah Jane sighed. "I'll help you along. It's like this, Doctor. What do we all have in common?"

"Um…" the Doctor looked around at the weird congregation. "Er… you've all encountered alien life in one form or another?"

"I _mean_," Sarah clarified exasperatedly, "excluding Clyde, Maria, Luke, Ianto, Gwen, and Jackie—they're just meaningless plot devices inserted by stupid scriptwriters for silly jokes and some sort of 'audience connection' (i.e., providing someone on the show who's both human and clueless)."

"Are you implying I'm clueless?" the Doctor demanded.

"Right now, yes."

"Are you implying they're all—" the Time Lord gestured to her list of 'excludings'—"clueless as well?"

"Yes."

"Hey!" Jackie and Luke exclaimed. Maria was too busy telling Clyde how much she hated him to pay attention to anything else. Ianto was distracting Gwen with a variation of 'why did the chicken cross the road?' which temporarily and pointlessly diverted the audience and got a few of the more ridiculously minded to laugh.

Sarah Jane cleared her throat. "Pointless plot diversion aside, let's get back to the real meaning we are here. I ask again, what do we all have in common, Doctor?"

The man from Gallifrey's brow furrowed. Then—"A_HA_!" the Doctor smacked his forehead. "Why didn't I think of that before? I've been stupid—utterly oblivious—it was right there in front of me! You're all _companions!"_

"Yes. Precisely. Which is why we felt the need to tell you that frankly, we've all had it. Up to here." She gestured to several inches above her head.

"Er…so…is that what the gun is for?" the Doctor gestured somewhat nervously to the weapon in Rose's hand.

Sarah Jane rolled her eyes. "Universe jumping has garbled _her_ mind; no one's quite sure what she's up to. She's gone a little…" the reporter hesitated.

"Pessimistic? Defeatist? Fatalist?" The Doctor supplied helpfully.

Donna added still more helpfully, "Black-Leather-And-Doomsday? Plain-And-Simply-Psycho?…well, sorry," she finished not-so-apologetically upon receiving glares from all of Rose's relations, ex-boyfriends, and Doctor. "Got a bit of the protective in here, haven't we?"

The reporter waved a hand, pulling everyone's attention back to herself. "Anyway, the _point_ is, Doctor, that we have this—" Sarah Jane pulled out a strange, spherical glowing object, "and we're not afraid to use it."

"An…egg from Raxicorricofallopatorius?" The Doctor queried.

"Oops. Wrong object." Sarah Jane plunged the egg back into her pocket and pulled out another spherical, glowing object—only this was much more spherical and…glowing. "HA! What do you think of _this_, Doctor?"

The Doctor gasped. "You…you _wouldn't._"

"We would. I see in your eyes that you know what we're about to do," Sarah Jane said evilly.

"Actually, I've no idea what you're going to do—I was rather shocked that you'd have a device that I don't recognize. I know _everything_—or I did."

"Well, you will again. _This,_ Doctor, is what's known as a Terrobscura, by the planet-napping residents of Vamoos. TerrObscura—roughly translates to _earth-stealer._"

The Doctor gasped. Sarah Jane laughed. "I can see you're horrified. Quite a terrible device, no?"

"It's not the device," the Doctor said in anguished tones, "it's the mangling of Latin contained in the device's name!"

Sarah Jane whacked him in an irritated fashion. "Would you focus, please? We—all of your companions—have decided that things need to change around here. So, quite frankly, Doctor, we've stolen your earth—and we won't give it back 'till you agree to a few conditions."

The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver and buzzed the Terrobscura. "Device broken. Earth restored. You were saying?"

Sarah Jane triumphantly waved her own sonic device over the Terrobscura. "Device repaired. Earth stolen. _You_ were saying?"

"…I knew I shouldn't have given you one of those," the Doctor muttered ruefully. He dove at Sarah Jane's left hand which was triumphantly holding the Terrobscura aloft, but she sidestepped him easily.

"Better not try _that_ again, Doc," she said smugly. "Remember, Rose has a gun."

"She wouldn't shoot me," the Doctor scoffed. Rose cocked her gun and said "Astrid" warningly.

"…well, she might," the Time Lord amended, feeling—quite possibly for the first time in his nine-hundred-plus lifespan—completely and utterly out of his depth.

"Martha," Sarah Jane said, ignoring him, "read him the conditions."

Martha stepped forward and opened a scroll. In a clear, steely voice, she began, "We the companions of that Gallifreyan Time Lord most commonly known as The Doctor do solemnly agree to return the planet Earth to its proper place in the sky so long as the following conditions are met by aforementioned Mr. Two-Hearts."

"Oi! Mr. Two-Hearts, indeed!" The Doctor fumed. "And what's all this about '_conditions'_?"

"Getting to that," Martha said reprovingly, "if you'd keep your mouth shut. First Condition: I will never, on any occasion, take a companion for granted—kidding, kidding, alright?" she added hastily, seeing the Doctor's wounded expression. "Here, why don't I just let you read these yourself?"

She tossed him the scroll. He opened it and read. Various cries of protest came from him—each request had been signed, and there were a few with Donna's name beside them…apparently she was very good at feigning ignorance and surprise. He glowered at her and turned to the list. The first one made him nearly drop the scroll. (Only a few are listed below for the sake of time and restriction of length).

1_. Refrain from making emo speeches about loneliness and being the last of the Time Lords and how (in spite of this loneliness) you can't get attached to anyone. It happens in site of the emo speeches so you might as well let it happen without them._ **–Rose Tyler** (and **Martha Jones)** (and **Donna Noble)**

13_. Regularly comb and trim your hair_—**Sarah Jane Smith. **(This one had been written and then crossed out with a very scathing protest bearing Rose's name next to the crossed out part. It had then been rewritten.)

17_. Occasionally talk with less speed than Donna's temp WPM rate._ –**Sarah Jane Smith **(and **Rose Tyler**)

23_. Fall in love with someone who isn't a blonde for a change._ –**Martha Jones. **(Rose had left a rather nasty note to the contrary next to this one as well.)

47_. Let my mum drive the TARDIS._ –**Rose Tyler.**

52_. Meet Tom._ –**Martha Jones**. ('And she says she's over it!' the Doctor thought grumpily.)

88_. Quit bad-mouthing Torchwood. _**–Captain Jack**

103_. Admit that you practice speeches (such as the "I never would") in front of the TARDIS consol and sometimes record them when you think no one is looking._ –**Donna Noble.**('Really!' he thought. 'The ideas that woman gets…you'd think she thought she could be me or something. And I do _not _practice speeches—well, except for some—well, most—well, everyone but the "I never would" speech—but I didn't practice that one—and why am I trying to justify this to myself?')

121_. Install a hot tub in the TARDIS._ –**All **(Sputter. Cough.)

And finally:

_Cease to refer to yourself as "brilliant" and being such an egotistical bighead. (Really! One would think you had two heads instead of two hearts, your one is big enough…or do you keep it all in the hair?) Begin to work on earning some other adjectives—say, humble, for instance._

The last one was particularly scathing. He figured it was composed jointly by Donna and Martha and agreed upon by everyone. It wasn't signed by anyone…but he could smell a redhead in it, and it was definitely Martha with the "egotistical bighead").

By the time that the Doctor had finished reading all the conditions (there were a hundred and forty-seven), he was rather hot and sweaty and feeling very put out by all this fuss over mere trivial matters.

"Hey, Sarah Jane," Captain Jack began.

"Stop it!" the Time Lord snapped.

Jack Harkness looked affronted. "I wasn't flirting. I wasn't even teasing." He started sulking in the corner (metaphorically speaking, since the TARDIS doesn't really have corners)… Micky coughed, releasing a noise that sounded suspiciously like "toothpaste boy" and the Captain's sulky scowl increased tenfold. Micky grinned.

"Well, here's a pen—you get to sign now, eh?" Sarah Jane said briskly, bringing the Doctor's attention back to the matters at hand. .

"But—but—I don't want to sign!" he protested.

"What's that supposed to mean?" his former companion demanded sharply.

"It means I don't want to," The Doctor explained with the patience usually demanded by a two-year-old.

"What does it mean?" Sarah pouted.

"I don't want to sign your stupid paper!" The Doctor's voice was rising with every word.

"What does it mean?"

"I've already said—_I don't want to!"_ He was practically shrieking now.

"Why don't you want to? It can't be that bad."

"It's signing my life away!" The Doctor hollered. Then his voice sank into a whine—one that he probably hadn't used in nine hundred years since he was in the nursery playing with radiation-blocks. "What would I be without emo speeches and uncombed hair and one-hundred words per minute and blondes?! _Nobody!_ That's who I'd be! I'd be _nobody!_ And I can't install a hot tub because nobody would believe my emo speeches anymore. There. Are you happy? Will you just _stop_?" He took one look at Sarah Jane's face, frozen in its stern position, and let out another whine. "Oohhhh!" he moaned, sinking even further into an emo-mood. "I'm the last of my kind—the last—nobody understands me—I'm _lonely_—!"

_Whack!_

Something hit his arm, and hollered quite close to his ear—

"DOCTOR_!" _

_Whack!_

It was across the face—and harder—this time. He blinked.

"Oww!" he half-glared, half-gaped at his ginger-haired companion who was suddenly standing in front of him. "What was _that_ for?"

"I don't know," she mocked exasperatedly. "_Maybe_ it was because I ask a simple question, "what does 'bad wolf' mean, and you start babbling about emo speeches and hair and blondes and hot tubs—" she broke off. "Tell you what, that's what this place needs—a _hot tub!"_

The Doctor groaned. Then he blinked several times and began dashing about the room and peering behind various things. "Where've they gone?" he exclaimed.

"Who?" Donna asked.

"All of them—Sarah Jane, the bellybutton-deprived kid, the angry girl, Captain Jack, Martha, Rose and her mum, Micky and his double, they're all gon—oh." He stopped, seeing a wary expression flit across his companion's face. "They never were here. I've been off in never-never-land, haven't I?"

"Yeah—_dumbo," _Donna said with a snigger. "You were completely useless for a few seconds there; I had to wallop you to get you out of it. Don't know why they think you're so smart. Ought to send you back to kindergarten, I should, teach you to pay attention proper."

"It wasn't a totally useless daydream," the Doctor protested. "In the course of it, I was instructed concerning the erroneous method of utilizing a Terrobscura from the egregious, planet-napping peoples of Vamoos, to play a brilliant and effective manipulation game—well, as long as you've got a threatening and terrifying pact to go along with it…" He rattled on further in a manner which his previous regeneration might have regarded as "wittering."

There were some things he might give up eventually—like his hairstyle, or his no-hot-tub policy.

He stopped his rattling when Donna appeared to be sufficiently lost, heaved an exaggerated sigh, and clarified, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world:

"I was learning how not to steal the earth."

Then there were things he knew he'd never give up. Talking as rapidly, complicatedly, and cryptically as he possibly could was one of them.

He turned around and pretended to be doing something worthwhile, while inwardly he was jumping up and down and pumping his fists screaming "Yes! Yessss!" at the baffled look on Donna's face.

It worked every time.

And it was absolutely priceless, every time.

No, better change that to _brilliant,_ because he _was _brilliant.

And he wasn't giving that one up, either.


End file.
